Welcome to Bede Burn – a fantastic school that we are all proud to be a part of. Thank you for taking the time to look at our website. We provide a very happy, caring, supportive place to learn and grow…as one parent put it, we are ‘a small school with a big heart!’ We have a talented and dedicated team of staff who focus on making life at our school fun, exciting and educational: a place where children want to be. We provide a broad curriculum and we value creativity and innovation. Energy, passion and praise are found here in abundance, as well as a love of learning.

We inspire our pupils to achieve, and have high expectations for all of our children; we aim to instil the belief that we are all capable of anything, with hard work and perseverance. We embrace challenges, safe in the knowledge that mistakes are simply opportunities to improve further. We think big – we dream big – and we go for it. Our hope is that our children leave Year 6 with everything they need for success in their bright futures, including a broad academic knowledge, respect for themselves and others, confidence and a host of fond memories.

We encourage a strong sense of collaboration within school, as well as with our families and our global community. We offer a wide range of clubs to our pupils, as well as visitor opportunities and other curriculum-enriching activities such as our international links. We have seen international recognition for our amazing singing efforts and we look forward to continuing this success throughout this year and beyond. We know the importance of contributing to our community and also appreciate support from others, including our Governors, parents, grandparents and our ‘Bede Burn Buddies’ group.

We are proud of our achievements – our children shine brightly and we welcome you to explore our website further. Please feel free to comment on our posts; it’s always nice to hear your views. Please contact us if you require any further information.

Thank you to the fabulous Mrs Peacock for, once again, knitting 21 Pudsey Bears! Children’s names were drawn out and the lucky winners are below. Thanks also to everyone who donated to this fabulous cause…as a school we raised an amazing £377.50!

Wowza! What an absolutely fantastic day we had yesterday! Hallowe’en certainly went with a bang, thanks to the amazing efforts of our children and their families in decorating pumpkins. Below you can see the winning designs for each class and the prizes won!

What an exciting day at Bede Burn! Today we were visited by the celebrity footballing free-styler Colin Nell, who has featured in films, computer games, promotional campaigns and more. We brought him in as a thank-you for the children’s hard work and motivation this half-term, and to inspire the children to further build on their achievements in the future.

Colin talked to all of the children about the power of ‘dreaming big’…of believing in themselves, aiming high and working hard to make their dreams a reality. As Colin quoted, “The road to greatness is not marked by perfection, but by the ability to constantly overcome adversity and failure.”

Colin also showed us some of the amazing free-styling tricks for which he is famous…we were all flabbergasted by his skills! It was as much of a treat to see the children’s faces light up in delight and amazement as it was to see the show itself!

The school was also fortunate enough to be given a signed copy of Mo Farah’s autobiography (Colin is his brother-in-law). We will be reading some inspirational excerpts from it in future assemblies. We were also given some signed photographs of Colin and he even signed our ‘classroom code’ poster in the hall.

After the fantastic assembly, Colin spent time with each class individually, teaching them some tricks of their own to practice at home. I am looking forward to seeing some of these tricks once children have practiced and mastered them!

All in all, it was an inspirational day for the pupils and the staff…we were all left with the feeling that anything was possible, if we believe in it enough and work hard at it. Thank you to Colin Nell; he helped me to greet the pupils at the gate, was amazing with the children and was even spotted helping the kitchen staff sweep up after dinner!

The positive message given by Colin today ties in perfectly with our new ‘classroom code’ posters which encourage the children to ‘think big, dream big, go for it!’ I hope that today’s phenomenal boost of self-belief and positivity continues to grow and flourish next half term….I can’t wait to see what our amazing pupils will achieve…

Well done and thank you to all the year 5 pupils as they have started this academic year with a bang! They have returned to school engaged and ready to learn and we are so impressed with them. They are all working hard and proving they can do anything when they set their mind to it. Keep up the amazing work!

Special shout out to those parents who have connected to our fantastic new app Seesaw, the children love it and it is a great way to see what we get up to in the classroom.

I can’t believe that we are in October already, time has certainly flown by. The children have all made a successful start to their time in KS2, even though there are big differences between KS1 and KS2 – mainly there being no afternoon playtime or morning fruit!

We have been exploring the time of the Stone Age, looking at photographs of cave paintings, illustrations of what life might have been like and exploring our very own “cave”. I have been thrilled with the interest that everyone has shown and the number of rocks brought in to share with the class has been amazing.

I was so proud of the children when they sang to the parents at the Coffee Afternoon last week and I am planning on putting up a recording of what they sang on Seesaw, as soon as I can figure out how to edit the recording so that it isn’t too huge to upload.

Our maths lessons are going well too, with lots of exploring and explaining of ideas. I hope that you all continue to enjoy the wonderful songs we are using to help us learn our times tables – they certainly brighten up my day.

Seesaw has had a major impact on our class, we so enjoy sharing our lessons with you, hopefully we will be able to iron out the remaining few problems with signing up at home so that even more of you will be able to see what goes on in Year 3.

Following a successful first few weeks at school we are ready and raring to go, well, until about half past 2 when our eye lids start to feel heavy and our thoughts drift towards home time, tea and snuggles! Undeterred, our first topic is ‘Bears’, developed through familiar stories and rhymes. We will be doing lots of art work to brighten up the classroom and finding out all about bears around the world.

Soon, the children will be starting their first reader, which they will bring home to share. We will be holding parent workshops this term to enable the children to show you how we do it in class. We have been working through the first phase of the phonics program, developing listening skills and exploring rhyme. There are lots of fun activities you can do at home to support your child like sound games and making up silly rhymes.

In Numeracy, the focus is on developing vocabulary through practical activities, including counting rhymes, sorting and matching activities and number recognition games with a little help from our number characters which I hope the children will tell you all about over the next few weeks.

Alongside these activities, the children have lots of opportunity for investigative play and active learning, as well as demonstrating their I.T skills. Most importantly they have time to get to know each other and to gain their confidence with us.

I am very proud of Year 2 and all that they have achieved this year! We had great fun giving out certificates at our mini awards ceremony and enjoyed celebrating our special talents. Thank you so much for all of your kind gifts and well wishes. Enjoy your summer!

I have had six very happy years here at Bede Burn, and I would like to thank you all for your support and encouragement over the years. I was overwhelmed this morning with so many kind words and wishes of good luck, cards and presents. I really am touched.

I know that I am leaving Bede Burn in very capable hands and Mrs Faulkner will be able to carry on the great work that we started together. The staff are all fantastic and you could not wish for better teachers, assistants, office staff or a site manager than we have at Bede Burn.

Will miss you all, but I will keep in touch and I can’t wait to hear about the continuing success of the school and the children.